Hi everyone,

News is weird. When it’s weird enough, it reads like articles from The Onion, and that’s what we’re all about. But as the community grows, there’s more and more content being posted here that just isn’t very Onion-y.

Jimmy Carter Becomes Second President Convicted Of Felony For Sticking Up Waffle House

Take a look at that headline from The Onion today. Or this one:

World Series Of Poker Entrants Play One Hand Face-Up So Everyone Can Learn Rules

Or this one:

New Hormone-Free IUD Wards Off Sperm With Steady Emission Of Police-Grade Pepper Spray

That’s the flavor we’re going for. We want real, credible news articles with headlines that read like they’re from The Onion.

This is not the community for:

  • Non-Onion-y political news (it’s gotta be absurd enough to look Onion-y)
  • Non-Onion-y regular news (it’s gotta be absurd enough to look Onion-y)
  • Satire (it’s gotta be actual news)
  • Fake news from fly-by-night “news” sites (again, it’s gotta be actual news)

That means not every ridiculous thing a politician does qualifies as appropriate content here.

I need your help, though… I need people to report content that just isn’t Onion-y, and I need people to try not to post non-Onion-y content in the first place.

Finally, I need help moderating, so this is also a formal call for new mods! Post below if you think you’re ready to take on moderation for one of the larger Lemmy communities! Tell me why you’d like to mod, and link to a news story from any time (it doesn’t have to be current) that has a properly Onion-y headline, to show that you really get this community.

I’ll pick two people to become new moderators for the community from participants. Good luck!

  • kescusay@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
    482·
    6 months ago

    I mean, I’m not gonna dispute that reality has been resembling The Onion more and more, but it’s important that the headlines convey that Onion-y goodness, and too many lately haven’t or are really borderline. People come here to say to themselves, “Holy shit, I can’t believe that’s a real headline!” Not “Holy shit… now I’m depressed. Oh, and that headline… is depressing.”

    • Nougat@fedia.io
      37·
      6 months ago

      To be fair, I mainly commented above to use the phrase “Onionton Window.”

    • jeffw@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      6 months ago

      Let’s pretend these articles are real:

      https://www.theonion.com/u-s-army-recruiter-has-bound-gagged-civilian-that-tee-1851482590

      https://www.theonion.com/advisors-assure-biden-this-will-blow-over-once-all-gaza-1851452315

      Is that not depressing? Depressing news can be Onion-y. I just pulled 2 examples from today’s front page, as you did.

      The issue here seems everyone has a different take on what it means to be Onion-y. You mention it can’t be depressing, someone else said it has to subvert expectations, etc. Yet, there are counter-examples for those things from The Onion itself. Again, my point is that “what is Onion-y?” Is an incredibly subjective question. I’d encourage a broad answer to that question when you’re moderating.

      • kescusay@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
        71·
        6 months ago

        You do raise some valid points, but the problem here is that if we go that route, we might as well rename this community from “Not The Onion” to “Politics But Focused Mostly On Hypocrisy”.

        I don’t think most of the people in this community want this to be a politically-focused community to the exclusion of everything else. We don’t want every article on the front page to be yet another “Trump did/said something hypocritical again.” That’s not Onion-y.

      • Hello Hotel@lemmy.worldEnglish
        41·
        6 months ago

        Only problem, the artiles you posted portray the us government as a comic book villan. The onion has a cartoonyness that stuff like this post doesnt.